Come away with me now, to enchantment beyond. Let us dance in the memories of days past, thrive for those yet to come, and relish in the present day.

Tag Archives: Fiction

Well, updates first, of course! I am not sure that I had mentioned it before, but I was hired to be a waitress at a Tavern/Bar back in March. Recently, though, I quit that job and now I have a new job! I am now a Video Game Advisor for GameStop, which is pretty awesome if you ask me!

Also, I’ve FINALLY resumed work on my book, which I’ve been writing off and on for a few years now. My goal is to have the first draft completed by September 30th, 2016, that way I can start a brand new project for NaNoWriMo in November this year. =D

It was hard writing for awhile, with everything that was going on emotionally and mentally for me. Struggling through anxiety and medication and trying to figure out ways to handle situations that send me plummeting for an anxiety attack where pretty much my main villains when it came to story writing, because I was just SO obsessed trying to handle it, that I had a really hard time focusing on much else. Regardless, after working with my doctor and counselor to fix my medicine dosage, I am FINALLY feeling like my normal self (from before these anxiety problems started back in 2008) again, which is a huge relief and a lot of pressure off of my chest and mind.

That aside, I’ve been reading a lot. Have any of heard of the book “Awkward” by Svetlana Chmakova?

She’s done a lot of manga books, but this was her very first work I’ve ever read. I absolutely loved not only the artwork but the story as well! It was such a great read and I plowed through it in under 24 hours. If you’re looking for a book to read before the summer is over, I highly recommend this one, especially if you enjoy everyday middle school life drama for a young girl trying to fit in.

Still not sure? Here’s the synopsis for it:

Cardinal rule #1 for surviving school: Don’t get noticed by the mean kids.

Cardinal rule #2 for surviving school: Seek out groups with similar interests and join them.

On her first day at her new school, Penelope—Peppi—Torres reminds herself of these basics. But when she trips into a quiet boy in the hall, Jaime Thompson, she’s already broken the first rule, and the mean kids start calling her the “nerder girlfriend.” How does she handle this crisis? By shoving poor Jaime and running away!

Falling back on rule two and surrounding herself with new friends in the art club, Peppi still can’t help feeling ashamed about the way she treated Jaime. Things are already awkward enough between the two, but to make matters worse, he’s a member of her own club’s archrivals—the science club! And when the two clubs go to war, Peppi realizes that sometimes you have to break the rules to survive middle school!

And, if you’re looking for anything to Netflix binge-watch, they recently added a new Japanese Rom-Com by the title of “Good Morning Call”, and is based off of the shōjo manga of the same name, which is adorable! Synopsis? Easy: A high school girl finally gets her own apartment, but she has to share it with the most popular boy in school. No one can know they’re living together. Come on, now who doesn’t love that?

To be completely honest, I’m an absolute sucker for Asian Rom-Com’s. I just love watching them so much, with their exaggerated expressions and reactions and everything, it’s just so much fun!

On that note, I’m going to head off. I just returned home from work and, speaking of Netflix, I want to watch some more of my shows.

Recently, I finished reading a book by Miss Liz Braswell, an English-born American who began her career developing video games before becoming a young-adult fiction writer. While it’s not totally up-to-date you can find her at her website, The Messy Desk. She most famously known as her alter-ego Celia Thomson, author of “The Nine Lives of Chloe King” series.

Her most recent book is the one I happened to pick up. Published this past September 1st (2015) by Disney Press, “A Whole New World: A Twisted Tale” is a re-take on the Disney Classic version of the Aladdin tale.

Now, my last book review was on “A Frozen Heart” by Elizabeth Rudnick (and, although it was a short review, you can find it here in my “Back to Blogging (Finally)!” post) which was also published by Disney Press. While I am always skeptical about a corporation like Disney taking a new crack at expanding or expounding on their original telling of a story, books like these are interesting to pick up and read, regardless of any contradictions that may arise. (Unless of course you’re a die-hard fan determined to never see any of the Disney-verse movies changed from their original storylines).

Haha, see how I did that, with the Aladdin gif. Yeah, I’m clever.

Pulling back, this book asks a question of great importance, which Goodreads was clever enough to point out: “What if one key moment from a familiar Disney film was changed?”

Liz Braswell’s version of the Disney Aladdin tale takes a much darker turn. When Aladdin retrieves the magic lamp for Jafar, the evil vizier actually GETS the lamp instead of Aladdin. The events that ensue create a new world of havoc for our heroes, with rebellion, death, and destruction becoming a daily piece of their lives. Jafar is proven to more than psychotic, Jasmine battles with herself concerning right and wrong, and Aladdin finds himself trying to keep her sane, along with every other character he interacts with.

I must admit, it is a much darker tale than I was expecting when I picked the book up. Death and violence is portrayed in a very un-Disney-like fashion of grotesque and avid imagery. For true-to-heart Disney fans who don’t want different perceptions of their favorite Classics, I would say this book may not be for you. However, for those who are of the more open-minded Disney fandom, I encourage you to definitely give this book a chance! For all its darkness and betrayal and evil deeds, it is well-written and a captivating read.

It’s great to be back, I’ve really missed writing here. After NaNoWriMo and then suddenly FINALS at college (yeah totally forgot about those), I was really starting to wonder if I’d EVER get back to my little corner of the blog-o-sphere!

Whelp on to business! I just spent just about my entire day working on Astronomy assignments for my last class. This included:

1 Lab

2 Activities

Exam #3 (60 questions)

And the Final Exam! (120 questions!)

I can now successfully say that my mind is fried!

This is how I felt ALL day!

Totally time for a break. Taking into consideration that I have to be up at about 6AM and it’s already 12:40AM, I should go to bed. But, I have to unwind. I can’t go to bed with a head full of astronomy problems dealing with mathematical equations, scientific notation, Hubble’s Law and so on.

Time to start a new book! I just finished “A Frozen Heart” by Elizabeth Rudnick. It is an expansion to the already famous Disney “Frozen” movie. The book follows Anna’s and Hans’ Points-of-View (POV) through alternating chapters, which “takes a sophisticated look at events of Frozen, exploring the couple’s backstories, motivations, and doomed relationship.”

Actually, it wasn’t that bad a of read and for any Disney (especially Disney “Frozen” fans) I would definitely suggest you pick it up. It’s relatively cheap. I got it at a BJ’s Wholesale Club for about $8 or $10. You can find it here on Barnes & Noble’s website for $9.73.

I’m thinking of picking up some of Brandon Mull‘s books. I have the first “Fablehaven” book and the first “Beyonders” book. I’m not sure, can I read “Beyonders” first or do I have to read “Fablehaven” so I can understand the world? Are they connected at all. Time to check the blurbs on the back of the books!

Anyway, off to read (although bed would be the smarter choice at this point…yay for lack of sleep later!)

NaNoWriMo has been kicking my butt. While I was able to plow through for the first couple of days, I hit a serious road block early on: I don’t know where I want the story to go.

It should be stated the story I chose to work on for the month was one I had been previously working on but I decided to re-write it because I wasn’t entirely sold on the manuscript I had already written. Unfortunately, this change has caused me to realize that I’m not happy with how the story has gone. It used to be a lot more fun than this and somewhere through all of the words and descriptions, character development and world building, scene transitions and dialogue, I got lost. So, I feel like I’m writing aimlessly which, in turn, feels rather pointless.

I understand that NaNoWriMo is all about having a complete novel at the “at least 50k” mark but I’m one of those writer’s who would rather spend the time figuring out what I want and how I want it instead of needless writing unnecessary things just to reach a word goal. This is because that means I’ll just have so many thousands of more words to go through and take out when it comes to the final editing process.

What I really need to do is sit down somewhere where I will have no distractions and figure out what I want for this story. How I want it to change from the previous manuscript, why I want it to change from that, and where to start it.

Also, I seriously miss having Microsoft Word. I finally made myself buy a new Macbook Pro because the one I was using was a 1st Generation MB Pro and it wasn’t letting me use programs properly for my homework/schoolwork. Seriously, this Apple Pages application is such a pain!

That being said, I think that’s enough for tonight. I’m going to post this and continue to sit outside with my parents in front of the fire we have going. It’s funny, because it’s about 47F outside but the fire is keeping us so warm that it’s pretty pleasant. The Christmas music is a nice touch, too, haha!

The whole goal of this event is to complete a novel of at least 50,000 words by the end of November. Yes, it is quite crazy to write an entire book in 30 days, but that’s part of the fun!

So, if I don’t post much this month, I’ll just apologize for that now. Spare time will be spent writing. Extra spare time between the spare time I spend writing will be dedicated to eating and sleeping so I can continue to power through this. Meanwhile, this will be my motivation for the month:

Haha, a Whovian at hearts no matter what the challenge! Allons-y and Geronimo!

My leg, it hurts. Ow, ow, ow. I’ve been groaning about my leg for about ten minutes now. I feel like the fish on Spongebob, who, no matter what happens but in every catastrophe on the show, cries:

Like a fool who doesn’t like to to take medication, I didn’t fill my pain medication. I only filled the inflammation medicine. So, I’m resorting to icing. While this is a temporary relief, it is better than nothing.

In other news, I’m watching “Maleficent” with my parents (it’s not like I can go out anywhere). I did give it a rather strict review in a previous post once and that wasn’t even my full review of it. Anyway, watching it a second time, it does have its charm and graces, good animation and fair cast, but I’m still not a fan of how they humanized Maleficent.

In other, other news, I’m looking for a Critique Partner (aka CP) for my book I’ve been writing. I posted a classified ad on another wordpress blog, so let’s see what comes up. If any of you ahve suggestions, I’d be glad to hear them. I’ll keep writing after the movie.

Day Six of our family vacation is in full swing! While my parents and brother and his girlfriend and her two sisters are at the beach (see, we only have 6 beach tags, so one of us had to stay behind…. Side Rant: I think it’s quite incredulous that you need to buy tags to go onto a beach. A beach should be public property where families and friends can go to relax. But, no, some towns and cities actually charge you to use their beaches! How demanding! What is this world coming to?). Ahem, anyway. I decided to walk Beni around town while they enjoy the sun and surf. I’m pretty beached out anyway and could use a day to relax from the surf, sand, and sun.

Beni and I made plenty of friends on our walk today. She is an ever-popular dog. I guess it helps that she’s super adorable and very socialable and friendly. I walked her 10 blocks to Starbucks. Once there, the lady at the window where I placed my order for iced green tea gave me a treat for Beni. That was nice. She asked if I was a dog walker, because when I went to this same Starbucks and this same girl was my server earlier in the week, I had been walking Leila, then. I told her no, I just have different dogs, haha! Beni and I then sat at a table outside and relaxed in the shade of the awning over the building while I drank my tea. I have a portable dog bowl that folds up, so I undid that and gave Beni some fresh, cool water to drink, too.

While I sat there, I met two men who are here on vacation from Albania! I thought at first that they were speaking French, and when I said that, the one guy snorted into his drink. I guess he found it funny. But they were speaking Albanian! I’m just glad they weren’t speaking French because I thought for a moment that maybe I forgot all that I’ve learned and practiced when I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.

Well, that being said, once Beni and I were done with our drinks and our break, I walked her 10 blocks back to our shore house. Now, she’s passed out on our couch, sleeping. What a cutie.

I found a new webcomic! It’s called “Emma”! Well, actually, DeviantArt introduced me to it, but that’s beside the point (or is it? Hm….). Here’s the link, so check it out: Emma: The Online Comic.

I think that’s it for now? Other than that, I’m reading E.D. Baker’s “The Frog Princess” series. Did you know that her book is what Disney’s “The Frog Princess” was based off of? It was written back in the early 2000s. Since I have to wait for October for the other book in her newer series to come out, I figured I’d re-read her first series since I:

Can’t quite remember it. And….

Am not quite sure that I ever finished the whole series.

I’m off to do some more reading (and writing probably). I’ll post some more pictures from my vacation later.